My Slides from the 90's

[Freakscene]

Somewhat self centeredly, I only post images of people when they are strangers, subjects of street photography. As such, they have been taken in public and are not subject to an expectation of privacy.

On the other hand, I never post images of people I know, out of respect for their privacy, and mine. Maintaining a certain level of online anonymity is important to me, and posting images of people I know may compromise this. In relation to my persona as Archiver, I never post images from my work, lest they be by some small chance recognized. Not sure about pets, but they are much harder to identify, haha.

I used to maintain such an approach. Then I got older and gave up. If someone wants to find out, they will, we leave too many footprints.

 

[p.giannakis]

In July 1996 me and my friends spend a few days in a village by the sea, mostly swimming and messing about. The area was rather rural and undeveloped back then - now it is full of beach bars.

View from the top of the mountain overlooking the beach



My friends messing about with a pushbike they found



Sometimes a tripod is a photographer's best friend. Without it - the photographer is rarely in a picture. I am the one with the white hat.

 

[Bolo Kukus]

Boy, things have changed in the last 25 years...

Everything and everywhere has. Even us. I realise this every time I look in a mirror...

Coincidentally, my only two visits to Greece were to Rhodes (which I loved), Mykonos (which I hated) and Kos (where I was in prison for four days, an unexpected experience which ended when a kind magistrate levied a 'peppercorn' fine on me in his court and then treated me to a lavish boozy lunch before I was taken to the ferry and sent off to Athens, a story I really must write before I shuffle off this mortal coil) in 1971 and a longer trek around as many parts of that beautiful if wild country I could cram into two weeks of free time in Europe in 1984. I have always wanted to return, but I've never made it.

Pan, if you have photographs of any of those lovely islands I saw so long ago, I would be keen to see them.

You know, this thread has really expanded into so many interesting byways...

What Archiver wrote (in #120) resonates with me. I'm far from being a shy type, but in my photography I instinctively hold back from going too close to people unless they specifically want a close-up/portrait of themselves. So my archives are full of images taken at distances of 3-5 meters. Not too close, yet not too far as to make individual faces indistinct. A happy medium distance, as it were.

As for online anonymity, well. I learned long ago in business that if you want to know everything important about someone, all you have to do it to get a copy of their credit report. The essential data is all there. What those agencies know and hold about us is - scary.

I too prefer to hide behind the camera rather than to be in front of it. Odd, this, as until I turned 40 I was madly keen on selfies and made sure I had photos of myself (like Pan I relied on tripods and self timers) in all the interesting places I went to, all the better for me as I often went out and still travel on my own and didn't/don't have anyone with me to take those shots. Now I treasure them, even if I sometimes look in a mirror and wonder if the Frankenstein I see reflected was that same male cutie on that beach in Tahiti in 1974. I was never good at getting model releases so I have scads of good images of persons I would like to use (the images I mean) but can't for legal reasons. Not that most of my long ago subjects would recognize themselves in photo anyway, but there is always the possibility. Many years ago I quoted two lines from a research document without a credit, in an essay I wrote for an obscure publication, and sure enough, a few months later a lawyer's letter arrived in the post. (Thankfully, the matter was settled in a friendly way and at no cost to me, only a letter to the editor, retrospectively thanking the originator of those lines.)

In this frenzied day and age people post no end of anything and everything about themselves and their personal/private lives but carry on like bludgeoned bunnies if they see even a long shot photo of themselves online. Crazy, but I reckon it reflects the insane time we live in.

 

[p.giannakis]

@DownUnder It is very often the case that people I speak to online have visited more places in Greece than I have, so unfortunately, no I haven't been to any of these three islands you mention but I have visited some other smaller ones and I will post some pictures with time. But by the sound of it you had one hell of a time in Kos. The best way to preserve this memory is to tell the story to a kid - i am always amazed by what stories my daughters remember.

I have quite a few pictures of myself from that period and also my friends and girlfriends I was with. Unfortunately there is no balance in that, landscapes always contain a friend or myself which I find really annoying now, so finding a picture that I like is a bit more difficult, most of them feel like holiday snapshots (and they are!).

Anyway, as I keep digging into these slides I will be posting more.

 

[p.giannakis]

A few more from that trip to Paros - Summer 1998
Praktica BMS

 

[p.giannakis]

My late father doing what he did best - telling stories about the past, this time to my friend.
August 1998 - Praktica BMS and a Sigma 70-210.

 

[Richard G]

And there is a photograph by a good son of his good father, and his excellent friend.

 

[p.giannakis]

Thank you so much Richard, I really appreciate your comment.

 

[p.giannakis]

Sandorini in the 90s
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
Canon EOS-5

 

[p.giannakis]

Sandorini in the 90s
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
Canon EOS-5

 

[Dogman]

Wonderful stuff, Pan.

 

[p.giannakis]

Wonderful stuff, Pan.

Thank you 🙂

 

[p.giannakis]

The Red Beach / Sandorini 1998

Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
Canon EOS-5

 

[Stelios]

Ah Santorini, a place I’ll probably never get to visit!

 

[p.giannakis]

Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100
Canon EOS-5

 

[p.giannakis]

 

[p.giannakis]

Island of Poros (Πόρος)

9th July 1996
Praktica BMS / Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100

 

[p.giannakis]

Tabacco crops in my parent's village - August 1996

Experimenting with a Cokin graduate filter.
Praktica BMS - Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100

 

[Freakscene]

Tabacco crops in my parent's village - August 1996

Experimenting with a Cokin graduate filter.
Praktica BMS - Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100

View attachment 4832542

The photo is very much of its time. Those coloured grad filters were cool and horrendous is equal parts.

 

[p.giannakis]

The photo is very much of its time. Those coloured grad filters were cool and horrendous is equal parts.

True, but there were some other horrid filters which I also had like a multi-image one, a diffuser, a sepia etc... They were my Christmas present when I didn't have any money to buy something.

That Cokin 5 system is gone now, I still have some Hoya laying around.